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Perhaps as a prelude to the “Border Surge” President Obama recently honored some “Dreamers” who have, in his estimation, made good. These are young people who have achieved semi legal status under DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival). This was the President’s response to the longstanding failure to pass of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors, known as the Dream Act, which would allow a “pathway to citizenship” to illegal arrivals who graduate US high schools, or have served in the military. The bill, in one form or another, has been kicking around since 2001.

Rather than go into the many controversies surrounding this and the ongoing “Border Crisis,” I would like to look at the “Dreamers” Mr. Obama chose to honor, and the venue in which he did so. Instead of standing in the Rose Garden with young people who are working two jobs while going to community college, running a small business, becoming firefighters or cops, the president honored a group of activists, some already deployed, others in preparation, as they work towards “social change,” change, in this case, meaning many more like themselves.

What’s wrong with social change, one might ask. After all, in The U.S. we have seen massive social change in the last few decades, with Black Americans taking their rightful place as full citizens, women free to work and compete with men in the marketplace, Gays no longer harassed and entrapped by law enforcement, and much more.

Change is good, right?

Google that phrase and you get 813,000,000 his in 31 seconds.

It is a very popular phrase, and like most such bromides, is at best fatuous, and at worst, dangerous. There were more than a few people in 1917 who did not appreciate the change in Russia, and seven decades of terror and misery proved them to be quite right. France still celebrates the massive change of 1789, but prefers not to speak to the century of instability that followed.

And those mercury laden ”green” light bulbs we are forced to use instead of the venerable incandescent, really, really suck. Government enforced social change has a sorry history.

What of the end of slavery, votes for women, and the Civil Rights movement, one might ask?

I would posit that these laws lagged the actual change, merely codifying what had occurred, and reflected the moral consensus at the time. Today’s activist governments, working with a network of academics, donors, and various non state actors, work to force social change into the consensus direction of this informal coalition, and that is towards centralization, multiculturalism, and collective action. In working towards these ends they will push policies clearly unwanted by the public. Comprehensive Immigration Reform, or Amnesty, is one such, and those honored by the President are to a greater or lesser extent, all involved in advancing this unprecedented legal, social, and demographic change.

The White House’s Champions of Change program shows up as a blog on the main White house page, and I find no entries before 2011. I was unable to determine how it is funded or staffed, nor how winners are selected.

Comprising the ten DACA awardees are 5 Mexican nationals, and one each from Colombia, India, Morocco and the Philippines. This spread is close to the immigration demographics cited in a January 2013 Pew Research report, which has total immigration since the 1965 reform, as 50% Hispanic, and 30% Asian.

Among the ten are an immigration lawyer, students in social studies, as well as a biology major and two others who aspire to medicine. There is one business major, and no engineering or technical majors. Let’s have a look at our DACA Dreamers. I order them roughly as to my estimate of how heavy hitters they might become in the social change industry.

Sarahi Espinoza

Sarahi Espinoza (Mexico), a former drop out, goes to community college, and works with the Girl Scouts of America to encourage youth to complete their educations. Her LinkedIn profile shows her as a member of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley. Ms Espinoza, a very attractive young woman, has a web page she calls sarahtv. It’s a bit ragged and seems aimed towards qualifying as an extra-curricular for college education, and maybe raising a little cash.

Hector Salamanca

Hector Salamanca Arroz (Mexico) “…has committed himself to service and advocacy to create social change.” He is majoring in law, politics and society at Drake University where he was the recipient of a LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) scholarship. Hector aims to be an immigration lawyer.

Rhustie Macelo Valdizino(Phillipines) “…is an active member and core leader at RAISE

Rhustie MarceloValdizno

(Revolutionizing Asian American Immigrant Stories on the East Coast). A community college student, major unstated,e hopes ne day to be doctor. This is the lightest resume here, but Rustie is gay, which may have put him over the bar.

Dayana Elvira Torres

It’s not clear what Dayana Elvira Torres(Colombia) is studying, but she is head of the Mason Dreamers at George Mason University, and has considerable lobbying experience in the immigration field for one so young. She is a recipient of a National Hispanic Recognition Scholarship from the College Board. That’s a new one on me. Do they also have scholarships for Asian geeks?

One of these Dreamers, Anahi Mendoza(Mexico) made the Ivy League, where she is

Anahi Mendoza

“..rising senior” at Harvard. Ms. Mendoza is majoring in Social Studies, with a focus on U.S. Immigration Policy and Social Change. I thought Social studies was the dumbed down combination version of what used to be Geography and History, which is bad enough, but at Harvard it looks to be something far worse.

While she is active in “immigrant” causes, Pratishth Khanna(India) has mapped out a clear plan to achieve a medical degree. Miss Khanna may be focusing on her career, but she too is an asset in the “immigrants’ rights” movement. Here she is in an interview posted on the website of SAALT (South Asia Americans Leading Together) is committed to social justice.

If you could ask one question of President Obama, what would it be?

I would tell him my story and ask if his was just as hard. I would ask for his advice, given that he is an African American man, I am an undocumented immigrant, and we have both faced serious civil rights challenges. I would want to know how he overcame his challenges and what advice he has for me.

This is just too perfect. If there is any evidence of the president working hard, it hasn’t been

Pratishtha_Khanna

forthcoming. Mr. Obama had family issues, but he has had a comfortable upbringing. The President grew to manhood after all the major Civil rights legislation passed, and flourished in an era of racial opportunities, if not outright preferences. Ms Khanna take her victim hood a step higher for, while Mr Obama in her view achieves victim status by membership in a group that did once suffer oppression, she sees her civil rights having been violated as a consequence of her status, which is in violation of immigration law. Her rights have been violated in that she has not been afforded the full rights that her status by law denies her. While this aspiring medical student is surely harmless, her position is logically no different than a felon, being been stripped of his civil rights, complaining that his rights had been violated.

As is SAALT , Mi Familia Vota is part of the social justice nexus. “…Mi Familia Vota is a national organization working to unite the Latino community and its allies to ensure social and economic justice through increased civic participation.”

Steven Arteaga

Both Stephen Arteaga (Mexico) and Ana Zaragoza (Mexico) are associated with Mi Familia Vota. Arteaga, who mentions no education plans, works there apparently full time, and Zaragoza part time or volunteer as she pursues a degree in Business Studies( Everything is “Studies” these days.). The organization is partnered with many Latino business and advocacy groups, including media powerhouse Univison, The National Council of La Raza, and the venerable LULAC, founded in 1929, and once known for its assimilationist outlook. All work towards open borders, which they see as essential to achieving “social” and “economic” justice.” Michele Malkin has extensively documented Vota Mi Familia’s connection with the hard left and thuggish SEIU.

Ana Zaragoza

While claiming to be a non partisan 501(c) group, the organization ‘s efforts will benefit only one political party, as this article in the Latino Times explains.

So far, we‘ve seen young people involved with social change, and most planning to make it part of their working lives. Now we move on to someone who has firmly grasped the first rung of the ladder that one day may take her to the heights of the social change economic justice academic/NGO/governmental complex.

Esther Yu Hsi Lee(Taiwan) has an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Middle East

Esther Yu Hsi Lee

Studies. Now there are a lot of crazies over there, but one suspects that Ms Lee is well aware that credentialed Islamophilia is highly valued among NGOs and the permanent bureaucracy. She also has Master’s psychology and now works as an Immigration Reporter for ThinkProgress, in Washington D.C. Working for one of the foremost Soros funded online presences, Ms Yee is on her way, proof that East Asians can succeed without studying a lot of science and math.

Next comes a gentleman who is the farthest advanced of those dreamers. Kamal Essaheb(Morrocco) Is an immigration lawyer for the National Immigration Law Center (NILC). Son of a taxi driver, Mr. Esaheb graduate from Fordham and was a Stein Scholar in Public Interest Law. You can be sure that when social change activists speak of the public interest, they don’t mean taxpayers.

When still a law student, as a consequence of the post 9/11 registration, Esaheb had a run in with Immigration. This was somehow resolved, and the young lawyer has since prospered. He married Megan Horn this year on May 14. They were joined in a Muslim ceremony at Manhattan’s Islamic Cultural Center. Shariah law does not require that a woman convert to Islam when marrying a Muslim, unlike the reverse, but it is common and one wonders if Essaheb has effected another small bit of social change here.

Ms Horn, a graduate of Connecticut Wesleyan, and a also a Fordham Law graduate works at a Washington non profit, Farmworker Justice, as a lawyer and policy analyst.

“The bride’s father is a professor of technical communications at Clarkson University in

Kamal Essaheb

Potsdam. Her mother is a professor of global studies at St. Lawrence University in Canton” There’s that “studies” word again, and “technical communications” sounds a bit highfaluting, and may be just business writing.

In addition to earning the appropriate credentials, and working in an approved field, Kamal Essaheb has now married into the New Class.

So what, you might say? You’re just miffed that the other side is well organized and smarter than your side. And after all, the Ddemocrats have always done well with immigrants, who in time largely moved out of their urban enclaves and into the middle class.

The difference is, this same party and the left academics and activists that now control it have long worked towards, and greatly succeeded in eliminating the notion of assimilation into traditional American culture and society. Rather, they work to enlist these new arrivals in their assault on what where once commonly held notions of Americanism, in the name of both the superior authenticity of non-Anglo societies, and the enumerated – and thus, restricted – rights of collective egalitarianism, as granted by the ruling class.

What will emerge from this is not yet clear, but it will be a far more hierarchal and oligarchic society, and the great mass of immigrants who do not achieve the status of white House dreamers, are those least likely to benefit from it.

Unlike the computer simulation in 1983’s “War Games,” this is a board game, a combination of Risk and Monopoly. In Risk early and bold moves are essential. A firm grasp of strategy wins every time; the dice won’t bail you out, unless you’re evenly matched.( I’ve lost every game of Risk I’ve ever played, so why should you read this?)The same is somewhat true with Monopoly, but a bad card early on can set you back hopelessly, or derail what looked to be a winning surge.
It’s pretty clear that the U.S. is distracted, or perhaps largely indifferent to what is going on around the globe. That goes for the current administration; as to the country’s intelligence services, who knows?

This nifty 33 page Congressional Research Service position page turned out to e a waste of time as President Obama pivoted somewhere else.

Late in 2011, the Administration announced a strategic realignment, or an intensified focus (accounts vary) de-emphasizing the Middle East and looking to the Pacific. With China continuing to make ir-redentist territorial claims, and given the chronic instability in the Middle East, and its lack of economic significance outside the energy sector, this made a good deal of sense, especially with a background of rising gas and oil production in North America, and great potential elsewhere.

Buttressing such a strategic would require a strong naval and air presence in the region, and a commitment to maximize North American energy production. We’ve seen the opposite. The indefinite Keystone XL Pipeline delay, slow permitting for exploration on Federal lands, and crippling EPA regulations on the use of coal for power generation, it’s clear the Obama Administration, at best, simply does not understand correlation, or worse, suffers from crippling cognitive dissonance. In what the New York Post calls “Obama’s Incredible Shrinking Pacific Pivot,” the President instead places his faith in adherence to international norms.

As to U.S. Naval strength. expert debates rage, and are beyond the non-specialist – this one, at least, but one does get the sense the U.S. is still more than capable. However, the administration seems to have given the Navy little attention, other than the installation of gender neutral heads, and arranging for some of the fleet to be fueled on algae, at substantial cost.

.
Like so many of Mr. Obama’s pivots, from jobs, to immigration, to gay whatever, and back again, the Pacific pivot in the end is reduced to no more than an interpretative dance move depicting a world that exists only in the CIC’s imagination.

Now, let’s game this.

Some of the Senkaku Islands, near Taiwan, in the South China Sea. Picturesque, but it’s about oil and gas.

An administration distracted by midterm elections, border chaos, and perhaps new revelations in ongoing scandals, and fresh ones yet to surface, presents an opening to China, who grab the Spratlys, and if they are feeling particularly bold, the Senkakus. With Japan moving to a more robust defense doctrine, and the weakest U.S. posture since before the Second World War there will never be a better chance.

Japan and China fight a short naval conflict, with both taking losses, but neither fully committing. War with China is not an option for the Japanese, who retire with honor intact. VietNam and the Philippines are chased from the Spratlys.

One of the many atolls in the Spratlys. Claimed by pretty much everyone around the South China Sea, but china is the big dog

The U.S. tut tuts like a worried grandmother surrounded by squabbling grandchildren, but it is apparent American security promises are worthless. India, which has been in a naval race with China, its navy, offers strategic guarantees to Southeast Asian nations, and acquires bases, with a forward position in the Philippines. Australia, after initial reluctance, realizes it is far from any other allies, and joins India, in combined naval operations, and provides basing rights.

Does China then make its play for Taiwan? Amphibious invasions are expensive, bloody, and highly risky affairs. Beijing strikes a deal with Taipei for autonomy within the PRC in return for withdrawal of U.S. forces from the island.

Where is Europe in all this? Busy dealing with the rising chaos as migrants pour in, spurred by violence and disruption in the Middle East and Africa as world tensions and currency crises buffet already fragile economies. Nationalist governments rise in Britain, and in newer EU members from the former East Bloc. Germany is happy to be Moscow’s banker as Russia and China form an entente cordiale. The U.S. fades from the world scene, as two far lesser powers divide most of Eurasia and dominate its maritime periphery.

Indian Shivalik class Frigate

India waits, and is riven by dissension over the massive cost of its new hemispheric defense posture.

One of the many atolls in the Spratlys. Claimed by pretty much everyone around the South China Sea, but China is the big dog

Latin America continues to be Latin America, with weak institutions and unbalanced economies. In the South, Brazil dominates, while to the North, the United States, Mexico and Central America are joined in a de facto Anschluss driven not by American power, but migration northwards. Canada realizes that its southern neighbor is lost, and plays itself between China and the Anglosphere as best it can.

In my scenario, China is the precipitating actor. One asks immediately, why would they do it? Are some small scraps of territory and national honor worth the enormous risk? I have no idea what competing factions within the PRC, in both the party and the military, might militate for or against such aggressive action.

In the light of rational thought, it seems insane. First it requires absolute confidence that the current administration in Washington would not meet its commitments; next, that the Chinese economy could weather the economic disruption sure to follow its action. And, as Messrs Obama and Kerry indignantly point out, this is the 21st Century, as they protest Putin’s 20th Century moves in the Ukraine. Meanwhile, ISIS has has gone all 19th Century in setting up their Islamic state, and different to the Sudan back then, there is no Kitchener to set things right; not even a Gordon, for that matter.

As we approach the centenary of the Guns of August, it is wise to reflect on how often before, leaders have miscalculated, and to recall the catastrophes that followed.

After an early enthusiasm for the Viet Nam war, other than Grenada, I have not supported any American intervention overseas in my lifetime. So for once, I find myself in agreement with the 44th president.

Mr. Obama has some bad optics with the ISIS assault in Iraq. Sure, it wasn’t his war, but his Vice President did say this in 2010:

(Iraq )”could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.”

The rout of the Baghdad government from large parts of the country looks bad, and calling it Bush’s war will resonate with the faithful, but others are a bit jaded with the” Bush did it” excuse six years in.. No matter who may be seen to “own” Iraq politically, the ISIS advances represent at the very least, a massive intelligence failure – or perhaps failure to act on intelligence. Coming so soon after the Crimea takeover, it just looks like crap.

As senator, Obama did not vote for Iraq, and rather than his frequent custom of listing himself “present,” voted against it. Others in his party cannot say the same. Mrs. Clinton was in, and both her husband and his VP, Al Gore, are on record long before the war, pointing to the danger posed by Saddam. Many other Democrats joined in the war vote, including the current Secretary of State, John Kerry.

Shiite militia parade, Baghdad, June 20, 2014. Despite the Nissan in the lead, from the headlights, it looks like Toyota has the conflict sewed up,truck-wise.

So how can Mr. Obama clear up his Iraq optics?

Embrace the Iraq war, and then kiss it goodbye.

Here, Barrack, let me show you how to do it.

“Good evening.

My fellow Americans, I am asking for your time this evening to speak on the recent and ongoing events in Iraq. This country has cast a long shadow on American politics and foreign policy, across administrations and parties, long before I became President.

These Shia ladies are on our side, sort of. In Syria and Lebanon, their veiled sisters are on the other side. Got it? I don’t. Did American really think it could handle this place? What were we thinking?

It is no secret that I voted against the Iraq War as Senator and ran against it when I first campaigned for the office of President. I promised an end to ur role in the conflict, and I kept that promise. As President I have learned much, and I have come to know this about America’s role in Iraq.

The men and women, in both parties, who voted for, and worked towards the ouster of Saddam, l believe, especially in view of Iraq’s present agony, were wrong.

But they were not, and are not, selfish or evil. There was no war for oil. Those who supported the war policy had two things in mind:

The national security of the United States, and, along with a hatred of Saddam’s tyranny, a sincere wish that Iraq be stable and free, and in time, lead the region out of its sad history of conflict and deprivation.

They should not be vilified for misplaced hope.

I, they, and all Americans honor the courage and sacrifice of the many thousands of our forces who served, died, and were maimed in Iraq. We also recognize the contributions of our civilians there, the diplomats, engineers and technicians, doctors and nurses, educators, and the whole range of specialists who worked to bring Iraq back from ruin.

In 2010, when we finally withdrew our forces it seemed we had succeeded.

That we have not is not the fault of any administration. America expended massive amounts of her treasure and expertise, and above all, the precious lives of our best and brightest young people, to give the Iraqi people a chance at a future of freedom and progress.

We are deeply saddened that ancient hatreds should make this unlikely for the foreseeable future.

But we have done enough, and can do no more. Nor would we if we could.

Self reliance is a core American value. While we cannot instill such a value where it is not, we understand that it must exist for any nation to succeed.

Therefore, while I will take such action as may be necessary to our immediate security needs, and may provide assistance where it can be used efficiently and honestly, the United States under my administration will not intervene in Iraq. Our time in Afghanistan is also coming to an end, and I hope profoundly hope that our friends there will look to Iraq and resolve to do better.

That so grand an undertaking has failed is a tragedy, but I urge you all tonight and in the days to come, to look back upon this chapter in our history as one of many times when America has given much, in return for little.

God Bless America

God bless our veterans

Thank you, and good night.”

C’mon, Mr. President. I guarantee you a 5% overnight bounce in the polls.

But for Barrack Obama to make such a statement would require both humility and magnanimity, two qualities in which he is signally lacking.

It’s not too early to talk about the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election. Most everyone else is, so I will too.

Back in September, 2011, I wrote a generally optimistic post on the role of race in the approaching election. While race was a factor in the near unanimous black turnout for the President, it was little apparent in the course of the campaign.

2016 will be different.

I don’t like commenting on race.

This is not because I am a coward, as Attorney General Holder so designated his fellow citizens in 2009 for not openly discussing race; something the Obama administration has never ceased doing.

Rather, I find it depressing, and even distressing that so many years after the great struggles of the Civil Rights Era, the issue should still exist at all, let alone have become as prominent as it has since the ascendance of President Obama.

He sees everything through the prism of race, as does his wife, and they are not shy about encouraging others to do the same. The President of course, has no inheritance from those Africans brought to the Americas in bondage, whose descendants constitute the majority of Black Americans, but by virtue of his pigmentation may lay claim to that sad, and, proud, history.

Racists seeing an African looking man will not stop to question his ancestry, but Mr. Obama has no history of having been harassed or held back for his color. Rather, in his autobiographical composition, “Dreams of My Father” his palpable resentment is based on what he imagines to be in the minds of others. The President’s time is winding down, and one would hope that the racially charged atmosphere he has fostered would also decline following his exit, but I think not.

Race will, I believe, be central to 2016. How can it, one might ask, without Mr. Obama on the ticket? All the signs are here. Social and broadcast media reverberate unceasingly with the racial outrage du jour. The 2012 coalition of blacks, Hispanics, Asians, young people, singe college educated women, union members, Gays, environmentalists, and other odds and ends I mayhave forgotten, is fragile and its segments have little in common. Turning out the 90plus per cent black Democrat vote will be critical.

There will be another black person on the Democrat ticket, perhaps heading it. The President may endorse Hillary Clinton but will damn her with faint praise. The fever pitch of racial hysteria seen in a seamless line up of “racist scandals,” such as remarks by Donald Sterling and Mark Cuban ,the asinine tweets of MSNBC’s Toure, and renewed rumblings on reparations for slavery and Jim Crow serve as efforts not only to excuse the President’s sorry record, but to push a zeitgeist where American racists hide everywhere in plain sight, and those who don’t care to join the hunt are best advised to lie low. America must then once again prove its bona fides by electing a black chief executive.

Mrs. Clinton is weakening. Benghazi continues to drip away and the high decibel deflecting by Democrats shows that it is beginning to tell. Republicans can be relied on the fudge the most perfect opportunities to do in an opponent, but this story is finally developing tiny legs of its own. The State Department’s failure on her watch to tag Boko Haram as terrorist, has been noted, Libya is in turmoil, and the Russian reset is a joke. The former First Lady herself cannot name her accomplishments. Foreign policy, as we saw in 2012, isn’t a big deal, especially when the Republicans are so timid and have sins of their own. The problem for Hillary, however, is that foreign policy is all she has, and her work there is best forgotten.

Mrs. Clinton on the campaign trail, 2007 in New Hampshire. Over 60, the wrinkles accelerate. I know.

And, she looks terrible.

This speaks both to Ms Warren’s age, which after Reagan and McCain, is fair game – and her tenuous 1/32 (Not really) Native American ancestry.

So who does this leave? Elizabeth Warren? Her media supporters managed to keep the “Fauxcahontas” story from getting much further than Massachusetts, and Massachusetts is, after all, Massachusetts, but putting aside her extreme redistributionist ideas, she could not survive the mockery nationally.

Both Clinton and Warren are old.

And where did Barrack Hussein Obama come from anyway, other than left field? There is no reason someone could not challenge inevitable Hillary, and it is far from a foregone conclusion that she will run at all. My front runners are Corr Booker and Deval Patrick.

Mr. Patrick, in his second term as governor of Massachusetts, has stated he will not seek reelection. Like the President, he graduated from Harvard Law School. The black population of the State is around 7.9%, well below the national average of 13.1%, which indicates his viability with a largely white electorate. The governor has said he will not be a candidate 2016, but things change. Black, or any color or ethnicity, Patrick is a reasonable candidate.

Cory Booker, former Mayor of Newark, where he was famed for superman-like exploits, even rescuing someone from a burning building, is only in his first term as junior Senator from New Jersey, but not fulfilling a first term wasn’t in the end held against President Obama. Now that we’ve elected a first term senator, and as conservatives swoon for first-termers Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, Booker can’t be faulted for inexperience. .

Thus, there are two black men who can meet both the Party’s and the President’s needs. Obama identifies as black, but he cares nothing for black people. There hasn’t been so much as a Beer Summit to address persistently higher unemployment among blacks compared to the general population. The Selfie- in-Chief loves only himself. So why would he care much who came after? The President dislikes white people as a class. He has no reason to, as they have always done well by him, but he doesn’t need one. While he has the lack of self awareness of a narcissistic sociopath, he is not entirely divorced from reality, and is, I think, driven to rage when he contemplates his in-authenticity. His narcissism means he doesn’t really care who succeeds him, but since he can’t succeed himself, he’d prefer someone black, who would, in that respect, mirror him. He would rather a black run, and lose, than he be followed by a white.

Thus, I am convinced that the next Democrat national ticket will have a black person, on it, and quite possible at its head. The only question is which one. I’ve mentioned two, but there is always the wild card.

Indeed, Mrs Obama has had a worldwide impact. This photo is from a daily in Tabasco, Mexico.

When you’ve stopped laughing consider how many have wished that Mr. Obama could have a third term, and have called for an end to the 22nd amendment.

Impossible, you say? In a nation with persistent joblessness and endemic underemployment, inner city war zones, humiliations abroad, the focus as I write on social media is on the Kim and Kanye wedding. Mr. Obama has been called by many the “Kardashian” president, but Michelle would be the true Kardashian candidate, without any experience or accomplishment, her being who she is qualification enough. Her campaign might dip into the TMZ stable for media management. The First Lady has long been a prominent figure on our electronic agora, that is to say The View and late night talk shows. Now, she’s getting involved in political matters. Pre-positioning?

This possibility is not at all outlandish in a nation where a large portion of the political class and the electorate that follows them, find something profound in this:

Mr. Obama’s successful campaigns have demolished any lingering idea of a necessity for qualifications, and the dynastic aspect of a wife succeeding a husband is not troubling at all to substantial numbers of voters. Consider that the term ”Clinton Restoration,” with its echoes of the Stuarts, is used quite seriously. Kennedy worship has never ceased, despite succeeding generations have shown the intelligence and talent of the latter Hapsburgs, the longest serving of them so far that murderous free diving Falstaff from Massachusetts who, after decades in the Senate reached apotheosis as the ”Lion of the Senate” before his final departure. Two Bushes, and talk of another. Pop and Kid Paul. , and . If you like Ben Carson, why shouldn’t someone like Michelle?

Then there is the gormless mania for British Royalty when they marry, give birth, or travel across the water to show us their funny hats. Perhaps we do want a king, and in the post feminist era, why not a queen? Why shouldn’t Michelle be a black Lurleen Wallace? And she could be far more than that. The infantilized electorate is ready for a Populist Madonna a la Eva Peron. Mrs. Obama has spent a great deal of time telling us to eat our vegetables. From First Lady to First Mother of the Nation is a logical step.

Historic first black president followed by historic first black female president. Rather than being seen as absurdity, this would be celebrated. Oppose it, and you are not only racist, but sexist. Talk about twofers!

As did many observers,after the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, I felt a sense of great futility.

A president with one of the worst economic records in history, a clearly failing foreign policy, a man of no managerial or administrative skills whatsoever, had been reelected on the basis of “coolness.” Familiarity with rap and basketball, ease in the talk show guest chair and near universal adulation as a great husband and fine father were the qualities judged by a plurality essential to leading to a country of 300 plus million.

Then there was his hapless opponent, and the stumble bum Republican campaign, which, while ably and precisely aided on its disastrous course by Obama For America, would have buried Mr. Romney all on its own. With of course, plenty of assists from a phalanx of media fellatrices.

Another four years of policy based on feelings, which sounds silly and insubstantial, but is all the more dangerous for its inchoate millenarian utopian longings manifested in multiculturalism, politically correct nostrums rooted in Stalinism, all backed by the coercive power of the sate, shown only occasionally with guns, more oftenly cloaked in a phantasmagoria of regulations and impenetrable law. Lawlessness is shrugged off with a giggle or a sneer, as the opposition party has the vapors and clutches its pearls.

Across the conservative threads(libertarians were largely cheering what they see as the coming conflagration, there were repression of weary defeat, and a strange sense of relief: If it’s all over, one no longer needs to care, as often expressed in the comment threads:.

It’s over

Fuck it.

Let it burn.

And my favorite:

Burn it down

Scatter the stones

Salt the earth where it stood.

So I quit blogging, restricting my writing to outraged, or cynical tweets, far easier to do while surfing the net, reading, watching TV or doing all three.

I mean, why bother?

Yet, over these last months things, some small and obscure, some momentous and widely known lead me to believe that it is not all over. The tide of infantile leftism has not washed away everything.

While Europe and the U.S. may be turning on the economic system that made them havens where humanity is safest, richest, healthiest, and happiest, much of the rest of the world – with the exceptions of some foolishly misguided regimes in Lain America, and of course, the Middle East – even large parts of Africa, are emerging from the poverty and oppression that has been the lot of most since humans first formed governments.

I admit to only skimming this 2000 page plus behemoth back in the 70s.

The Malthusian misery that experts saw as Asia’s inescapable fate turned out entirely wrong. Gunnar Myrdal’s Asian Diilemma of burgeoning populations and scarce resources gives way to an Asian dilemma as how best to supply the goods, services and opportunities the continents’ new middle classes demand.

While Mr Obama, fresh off diversionary feints on immigration and gun control, turns to “Climate Change,” that issue has nearly dropped out of public consciousness, as the defects in it proponents” arguments become more and more clear as they themselves cannot explain the failure of their models.

Even as, in the wakes of the Boston bombing, and the Woolich beheading, governments and media rush to assure us that these atrocities have nothing to do with Islam, public disapproval of Islam rises.

Evil White racists just didn’t bring out the fans.

While much of American made television and film is filled with endless anti-male, anti – christian, and, dare I say it anti white –sentiments(See “White House down.” Better yet, don’t) some science fiction seems to feel freer to express sentiments not acceptable in mainstream Hollywood drama or comedy, and go beyond the Left Coast’s pet hates to address issues and ideas of real substance. Resistance to big government and constitutional legitimacy are common themes(More on this topic here).

There is of course schadenfreude in Mr. Obama’s current travails. To those who have shifted their views to give him approval ratings that would have sunk him in the election, it’s” We told you so ” time. The president’s Olympian distance( some call it cluelessness), and the dodge and weave tactics of his operators have held back the deluge so far, and while wouldn’t bet on a “Downfall” scenario, irrelevance, however, is quite possible, and more than enough.

Better yet, while the Presidents approval remains in the mid to high forties, an indicator of the truth in Romney’s 47pct remarks, there is a growing sense that something is amiss. In the “Wizard of Oz it was a diminutive nobody pulling the levers powering the illusion. Now, many have the queasysy feeling that there is no one at all behind the curtain.

Republicans can be counted on to cringe at exactly right moment, and decades of of indoctrination and propaganda from left dominated institutions will not be undone by a scattered and not yet self conscious opposition, but it may be – yes ,I understand my weaselly use of the conditional here – that a second term for Mr. Obama, even with all its costs in money and institutional damage, is what is necessary to once again discredit leftism at a time when growing numbers are not old enough to remember its previous failures.

While much of American made television and film is filled with endless anti-male, anti – christian, and, dare I say it anti white –sentiments(See “White House down.” Better yet, don’t) Science fiction seems to feel freer to express sentiments not acceptable in mainstream Hollywood drama or comedy.

Misfits stay one step ahead of a Government that only wants to help.

2002’s “Firefly” was a space opera western in which liberty living losers in a war against an all powerful “Alliance” roam the fringes of humanity’s new home in another galaxy. The Alliance governed “Core” is clean, perfect, and monstrously oppressive. Its all pervading order and surveillance seem prescient in view of today’s data seizure revelations(Well, not revelations to me, or those who conceived this series). A good deal of their semi-criminal activity involves avoiding revenue collectors. Nobody’s perfect: there is one episode in which a colony of Christian fundamentalists decide to burn a psychic crew member as a witch. Islam doesn’t seem to have made the the extraterrestrial jump.

Dramatic ending to Season One: A refugee, relieved to be sheltered by the US military, finds that all is not well.

Later in the decade, “Jericho,” while positing an “evil corporation” of the Halliburton type as responsible for the nuclear decapitation of the American republic, then goes on to show hardworking, god fearing small town Americans defending themselves, and the Constitution, with firearms they know well how to use. DeToqueville’s observation of the American character as both individual and associational is clear and consistent throughout the series.

The Second Massachusetts resistance regiment in the current “Falling Skies “ is an unsubtle and proud reference to the original Minutemen. Nationwide authority has been taken out in the initial stage of the alien invasion. It falls to citizen soldiers to carry on the fight. While it is hard to imagine the city of “Shelter in place” actually taking such action, it is cheering that someone writes scripts that find the idea inspiring. At the end of the last season, the 2nd Mass bailed out of an authoritarian non-constitutional restored government to fight the aliens on its own. Given the USA’s difficulties in Afghanistan, “Falling Skies” might also be seen as making a point on the power of assymetrical warfare

Plenty fo guns, and an ongoing Starwars bar scene – with hookers!

Yes, the bad guys in “Revolution” are a militia, but the rebels fight to restore the Constitution and are willing to die for the Stars and Stripes. “Defiance,” while pushing a “Coexist” message of “Why can’t we all get along,” after alien invasions, also shows a healthy respect for self defense and entrepreneurship, with one important character the unashamed female owner of a thriving bar and brothel. Social conservatives might find this a left libertine thread, but it appears to me to be pure libertarian.

Isolated group fighting off hordes of, um, “savages.” Is this racist, or something?

And then there is “Walking Dead.” Pure atomistic survival. The one authority re-established after the fall of the old order, the Governor, is pure evil. Once again, it takes families and small groups – with guns – to resist.

I don’t know whether there is a conscious resistance in Hollywood, or writers and producers simply cannot ignore the fact that warmed over 60s leftism doesn’t sell outside of Sundance, but there is an audience for values traditionally seen as American.

Readers of these pages will know that I am no supporter of Mr. Obama, but that I had a foreboding he would win. Many of my friends were on board with Messers. Carl Rove, Dick Morris, Michael Barone and other pundits, convinced that Romney would win. After all, no president looking for a second term with the country in similar distress had ever succeeded.

I replied to these pep talks that the country now was not the country then, not even the same country that rejected McCain in 2008.

Paris, 1941. OK, I’m not as despondent as this guy was.

So, I really should not be despondent. But I am.

In 2008, Mr. Obama promised fundamental transformation, and prior to the vote, one could hope that it had not been yet fully accomplished. Now it will be completed.

“This afternoon at the White House, the President met with influential progressives to talk about the importance of preventing a tax increase on middle class families, strengthening our economy and adopting a balanced approach to deficit reduction,” Earnest said in a statement Tuesday.

We have re-elected a President who sees “Progressives” as major players. Of course, he and his staff met with these people earlier in his term, but now there is no reason to dissemble. The fifth columnists and franc tireurs show themselves.

George Meany of the AFL-CIO and many others at 1962 signing of Manpower Training Act

AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka along with Soros funded Moveon.org head Justin Ruben after meeting the President in the White Hoiuse November 13, 2012. Just in case you had any doubt as to who is in charge.

On November 13,The President met with AFL-CIO leader Trumka and Moveon.org at the White house. I’m old enough to remember George Meany, and a time where unions, having purged the radical leftists among them, were pretty solidly at the center of American politics. If Trumka ever watched “On the Waterfront,” he was cheering for the bad guys.

The comment boards are full of hopeful writers who put out their point by point programs for retaking Congress, and then the White House. Others rightly point to the institutions, schools and churches,

The Hollywood Left( which is most of them) never forgave director Elia Kazan for both testifying to communist influence in Tinselstown, and making this film showing the leftist thugs among the longshoremen.

which must be retaken by grassroots action. The entire culture,online pundit Roger L. Simon says,must be retaken. He recommends Youtube. Or something.

And then there is the fight between those who want to dump social issues, and those who would rather see the Republic obliterated before one more fetus is aborted.

Not to mention those who recommend investing in “brass and lead” and can’t wait to shoot leftists. Let’s remember the last scene in 1970 movie “Joe” in which hippie hating Peter Boyle ends up wasting his daughter. Or the Spanish Civil War.

And of course, the United States Military, which, PC as it may have become, still can cream pretty much any fighting force on earth.. And then there is DHS, ramping up local law enforcement firepower.

So, all of this is blather, in my view. A “center right” country could have elected Obama in a fit of inattention, but such a nation could not have reelected him.

Mr. Obama still bridles at being called a socialist, but he need not. When 23% of Republicans have a favorable view of socialism, “progressives” should lick their

WTF? Just WTF!

chops.

23% of Republicans viewing socialism favorably?

Do they know what socialism is? Do they know what Republicans are? Do Republicans know what Republicans are?

And then, there is this ” Americans Aged 18-29 Have A More Favorable Response To Socialism Than To Capitalism.”

Perhaps they will grow out of it, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I doubt many under 50 would have much idea of the references I’ve used here. There are those things, it seems, that have to be learned through experience rather than study.

Something has changed. And perhaps the country that those of us who despise this change mourn, never existed.

If it did, it will not return, and what takes it place will be what it will be.

( I profoundly hope this will be my last post on President Barack Obama)

D’oh!Bama

Remember BusHitler? Perhaps you’ve seen Shrillery and Romoney. President Obama has inspired a naming frenzy far beyond the slanging epithets of other campaigns.

In Islamic tradition, Allah has 99 names, or more properly, attributes, such as “Allah the Merciful.” It occurred to me that President Obama who is something of a demigod himself in some quarters might have at least as many, so I began collecting them some months ago, and the amount rose rapidly.

There are two reasons for this.

First, a large portion of the electorate, and that of core includes me, profoundly disapprove of Mr. Obama, his foundational philosophy, administration, and plans, such as they are, for our future. This dislike appears across the internet in the nearly endless plays on the President’s name.

The second is linguistic. Consider the huge number of words beginning with “ob” and the even vaster total starting simply with “o,” and the President is cooked. That his name begins and ends with a vowel doesn’t help, and even more variants can be added by using words ending in those vowels, as prefixes and suffixes.

Then there is the vocative imperative s in “Oh, bite me!”

The word plays fall into recognizable categories. Let’s look at a few.

Obamamugabe, Hugobama, Maobama derive from the President’s authoritarian leanings. HoBama sounds like a ghetto epithet, but was a reference to Ho Chi Minh.

Quite a number point to the President’s Islamophilia . Obama bin Laden is pretty obvious and is a slip of the tongue that even experience newscasters have made. My spell check must know something as it want to change “Obama” to “Osama.” More and more writers are avoiding this by spelling the dead terrorist’s name “Usama,” which is in fact closer to the actual Arabic.

Buraq Obama is a bit subtler. The buraq was the flying steed that transported Muhammed to Jerusalem and back one night. Then there is Obamatollah.

Some, such as Obongo( although this first one could be a reference to long time dictator Omar Bongo of Gabon) and Obango might be considered racist. T’Won(the one) and Teh Won are reminiscent of some of the idiosyncratic spelling in names favored by some African Americans. Not all of these names are derived directly from the president’s name.

There is “Chocolate Jesus.” Before calling “racism,” one should consider that this is likely derived from “Chicago Jesus,” coined by David Axelrod. Others of this sort are “Captain Zero” and” “President Downgrade,” commemorating the president’s presiding over the first ever downgrading of U.S. credit.

Others refer to Mr. Obama’s performance in office: Obumble, which also produces the morphological variants Obumbler and Obumbles.

HomObama? I don’t think so!

There are many more.

In Arthur C. Clarke’s 1953 story “The Nine Billion Names of God” the universe comes to an end when some Tibetan monks use a super computer to write out all the possible names of God. President Obama is still a long way from nine billion names, but if he’s around for another four years he will easily garner another ninety nine or more. In that case the stars will not fall from the sky as they did in the story, but the Stars and Stripes may well.

A Beeb poll conducted in 21 nations around the world shows President Obama the clear favorite. I can just imagine the newsroom folks cackling sententiously as they make American jokes with appallingly bad Texas accents. As an expatriate working among mostly Brits and Aussies I was constantly being condescend to, and was met with utter incredulity when I objected. As far as I am concerned these 21 nations are 21 more reasons to vote for the Romney –Ryan ticket. Except for perhaps in his own mind, Mr. Obama is not running for President of the world, but maybe he should, as the past four years show him to be singularly unfit for the job of President of the United States.

Among a certain set in the U.S., largely the same demographic that enjoys British period drama series on PBS, this survey will serve as confirmation of their own place among the smug global elect. After all, the rest of the world agrees with us, so we must be right. Things are in my view, unfortunately – changing, but historically the US hasn’t much cared what the rest of the world thought, and this may be the single most important reason why we are still here.

Let’s look at the world that so many in the Obama camp think we should emulate.

First there is Europe. There has always been a certain summer in Tuscany set that thought the European way far superior to the disordered and rapid pace of American life. While we work long hours, they are sitting in cafes sipping fine coffee and discussing, well,

important stuff.

What one needs to remember is that, despite recent demographic shifts, a majority of

Americans are descended from people who thought their lives depended on getting the hell out of Europe. This was a rather sensible outlook. Why would thoughtful people with some gumption wish to remain on the continent that gave us Wars of Religion, and wars of succession where armies battled and looted to advance the

The alfresco cafe is now a part of the American scene. The coffee at 7-11 is pretty darn good, too.

hereditary prerogatives of whoever had married whichever princess, somewhere, sometime.

And that was the good stuff, just a warm up for the total wars of ideology.

Well, now in the US we have fine coffee, outdoor cafes and, while we still don’t have long vacations, even in the current downturn, a lot more of us have jobs than do over on the other side. We are grateful for some of our European heritage. After all, we gained our independence based on our rights as Englishmen, and our founders were profoundly influenced by the Enlightenment, both French and Scottish.

Thus is it is sad for us to look at Britain, where the same elite that staffs the BBC

In Britain they haven’t quite figured out thoughtcrime, but crimespeak will get you finds and/or jail. The black and white hands would seem to have anticipated the ruling multicutural ideology.

unilaterally decided to overwhelm its native people with an alien and unassimilable horde because, well, because it would be neat to have more “diversity.” This disarmed and helpless populace could do little about it if they wanted to, as under their “unwritten constitution,” which is none at all, they can be taken into custody for such Orwellian offenses as “conspiring to commit a public nuisance” or” damaging community cohesion.” We are grateful to Mr. Orwell for providing us the language to describe this madness, but wish his countrymen had listened a little more closely. The ruling class has little fear of change as the brutal and demeaning class system remains in lace, destroying the working class’s sense of self worth from the cradle on, and anesthetizing a large part of it with the dole.

King John signs the Magna Carta 1215. It helps when you write stuff down.

Somehow, after a promising start at Runnymede you never quite found your way.

Then there is France. Her revolution was the model for every bloody vanguard of the proletariat uprising since, and the monster this nation laid to rest at Les Invalides gave the world total war. Still, the wine and cheese are great, and the movies, well, I think a lot of us were faking when we hung out, smoked and drank coffee while discussing the Nouvelle Vague. We don’t smoke anymore and our wine and cheese have gotten pretty awesome.

From the Time of that latter Louises until now, statism has been your way of life, andt he results have been mixed to say the least. It enabled you to wage war, but not to win.

“Third of May” Francisco Goya. Napoleon’s troops shoot civilians. An archetype for countless atrocities over the next century and a half.

Germany, well while we are grateful for the industriousness of the many Germans whose descendants are still a major segment our population, the less said about you, the better.

It’s as if Goya were clairvoyant.

Spain has been an indirect, but still major influence on our history because she bequeathed her system to our neighbors. Latin America may prefer Obama, but there is no reason to listen. A continent yet to pull itself out of the seventeenth century feudal mercantilist economic and social structures bequeathed it by Iberia has nothing to teach us. One has only to look at the telenovelas so popular around the world, or pictures of the ruling classes, to marvel at the almost uniformly white faces in a continent whose inhabitants are predominantly brown and black.

We’re grateful for the great food, exotic cocktails, and wonderful music, but have no interest in the dizzying and manic array of social organizations you have attempted to solve your problems. Military dictatorships, collectivism, crypto socialists, fascist populists, race based oligarchies, messianic leaders combinng the qualities of caudillo, cacique and shaman come and go down there, but we are still here.

Asian ladies are a highlight of any trip to the symphony these days.

As for Asia, even better than the fine cuisines you’ve brought our way are the industry and success of your emigrants, who, like the Europeans before them, had to leave their ancient lands so as to thrive. We’ll take your engineers, physicists, classical musicians and entrepreneurs, but you can keep your caste systems and oligarchic collectives.

In Africa, perhaps the affection for Mr. Obama there is based on a sense of him as a native son made good. He has certainly done nothing else of benefit for that struggling continent. We are happy to welcome arrival such as Alioune Niass, the Senegalese street vendor who helped foil the 2010 Times Square bombing plot, but want no part of the conditions that drove him across the Atlantic.

Then there is the Middle East. No one would pay any attention to you were it not for the fortunate placement of hydrocarbons in your region, and you would not have that had not the British and Americans found it for you. Please, refrain from boastful myth about inventions you had nothing to do with. Arabic numerals came from India. What you did do was over a millennium ago, and your real thinkers and doers of that time you imprisoned or killed, as you do today.

So, you see, we don’t care what any of you think about who should lead us. We take from you what is good, and leave you the rest. And now, we will ignore your advice, and elect a man who looks to us, not to you.

In April of this year, in the disarray after a military coup, Malian government forces fled the country’s northern cities, abandoning an area as large as France. While there were several actors in the anti-government movement, hard-line Islamists affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb quickly appeared alongside the local Islamic militia, Ansar Al Dine.

The fabled city of Timbuktu came under shariah law, with wine and music banished, and floggings, amputations and the demolition of ancient Muslim shrines in their place. This is an appalling situation for the people of Northern Mali, one that is little noticed in the West, at least among the priorities of foreign policy establishments. It should be, not only for the gross violations of human rights in Northern Mali, but for its larger strategic implications.

In the wake of Muammar Qadaffi’s deposition, vast stores of weapons and armaments

Benghazi US consulate under attack on 9/11/2012

found their way into many hands. In fact, Navy seal, Glen Doherty killed at Benghazi, was tasked with trying to retrieve shoulder fired anti aircraft missiles. Libya’s interim president has stated that foreign fighters, including some from Mali, were involved in the attack. There is little reason to doubt him, as his version of events has been proven right, while the “evolving” positions of the US administration have been consistently wrong.

One fears then that American policy makers have little if any idea of what they are dealing with: far more than isolated terrorist attacks, but a continent wide challenge.

In Nigeria, Boko Haram, a violent Jihadist movement, began its campaign in 2009. Yet, while information on its savage asymmetrical war of bombings, assassinations, beheadings and ethnic cleansing has been reported by the wire services from the start, it was long rarely mentioned in broadcast news reports. A search shows CNN first reporting in 2011, and then only in security matters blogs. Boko Haram’s atrocities make for lurid reporting, but the group has a far larger significance,

Perhaps the most startling thing about these fighters along this frontier route is that nearly all of them are from sub-Saharan Africa rather than the Maghreb.

, I am surprised,” Nigerien Hicham Bilal, who is leading a katiba (combat unit) to Gao, admitted to AFP. “Every day we have new volunteers. They come from Togo, Benin, Niger, Guinea, Senegal, Algeria and elsewhere.”

This then, is the significance of Mali. A route has been opened for jihad from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Guinea. A look at the map shows the enormous advantage the forces of Islam have. Boko Haram began by demanding Islamic rule in the Muslim majority northern half of the country; now it fights to brig all of Nigeria under sharia.

Why then would one doubt that Islamic rule in North Africa and the Sahel would not press

The fall of Northern Mali has opened a jihad trail between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

further, through migration, economic pressure, and outright war? There are strategic thinkers among the Islamists. The movement that now triumphs in Egypt began in the1920s.

In Arabic “abd,” slave, also means black African The Arab drive for domination of black Africa began many centuries ago, manifested most blatantly in the Arab slave trade, reaching deep into the interior, penetrating as far as the Central Congo. Confronted with superior European technology and organization, Arab influence in Central Africa receded, but has long since renewed its assault as the decades long Civil War ( which might better be called the war for Independence of black Sudan) in Sudan, and the continuing oppression of Muslim black people in Darfur. The ancient Christian land Of Ethiopia is already one third Muslim, and Christians have been expelled from some Muslim areas. In Kenya , Somali Al Shabab jihad operatives have carried out attacks in the capital, Nairobi. Any African country with a substantial Muslim population can expect Arab directed violence and aggression, with the assistance of these large fifth columns,

Poor Africa. The continent seems destined to be dominated and plundered. These trends

Tippu Tip or Tib (1837 – June 14, 1905 Once owned 10,000 slaves. His influence reached the Easter Congo. While he appears black, he was partly of Muscat descent, considered himself an Arab, and acted accordingly towards non Muslim Africans

point to a future in which black Africa faces economic, political and religious enslavement. Christianity in the ancient lads of Christendom has become largely nominal; in Africa it is fervent belief. Christian Africa will not submit willingly, but its resistance will be at a severe disadvantage. The Muslim forces will have the support of their brethren globally, and the weapons and resources for war in which the Middle East and North Africa are well stocked. If Christian Africans receive the same level of support that the West has given minorities in Muslim lands, the their future may be grim.

This Arab empire will be like its predecessors, living off plunder and captive populations, perhaps partnering with Russia and China in resource extraction, even as hose nations fight their own Islamic insurgents.

So, are these the musings of someone with an internet connection ad too much time on his hands?

Perhaps not.

Africom, established in 2007 and headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, is U.S military’s hybrid military-civilian organization with the mission of working with African nations on security matters, with security broadly defined as including not just military capability but economic and social developmen,t as well. Although the US has bases in Africa, no African nation has agreed to host the command,

The commands mission is sounds relatively benign, but some Africans see it as aimed a securing resurces and supply lines. This may be so. Perhaps the US is pre-positioning for its part in the wider struggle. On whose side it will stand, and why is open to question, but what isn’t, is that it is Africa that will suffer as it always has.

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